Demon Inside
by Rolyat Eivyf
Summary: A Sweeney Todd story. A rewrite of a previous project. I hope you enjoy.


_"The best thing about dreams is that fleeting moment, when you are between asleep and awake, when you don't know the difference between reality and fantasy, when for just that one moment you feel with your entire soul that the dream is reality, and it really happened."_

* * *

Sweeney Todd was not a man to be bargained with.

He had his mind set on what he would and she would not ever be, and so he was always miserable. She would titter and fuss and do his bidding but she never could quite break that barrier that was so blatantly laid between them. A barrier so obvious and yet seen by absolutely no one. The barber and the baker. A man and a woman who lived and were seen together so often that it struck one rather silly to think of them as not being a single item. But in fact, it was they who were the fools. It was they who ignored the terseness in the barber's movements when he was around her, the awkwardness that hung between them. I could see it. I could see everything.

I was the one who had been hired to stand outside of the bakers shop and pass around fliers for her new pies at the dinner rush. A lesser calling than what I had been brought up for. I had proven skills as a seamstress, a real diamond in the rough that could sew up the most complicated patterns without ever batting an eye. But something else had caught my eye. A stranger, broad shouldered and dark, had caught my eye and refused to give it up. The baker scurries around her small court-yard, hustling customers to the dry interior as the heavens pour down their fury upon this wretched city. The streets salesmen fold up their stands and pull their jackets over their heads and hurry under balconies or unfurl great black umbrella's and swagger down the street. I watch and wait until the street is completely vacant save for the odd soul that comes out of the baker's diner and sprints for cover. A man appears beside me. He is large—no that is an understatement—he is ridiculously enormous. His triple chin and bulging stomach make him look like a giant egg with small, stubby arms and legs poking out. In his left hand is a half empty bottle of scotch. He reeks of booze.

The egg man pauses at the front doors of the Meat Pie Emporium. He purses his thick lips, and scratches an ugly scar on the side of his bald head. He looks rather at ends with himself. To go in, or not to go in. Even the baker has spotted the egg man and is looking at me questioningly. I lift my shoulders and let them drop. I have no idea what this fat man wants. For all I know he plans to stand there and inspect the door handles for rust. Or, since they are nice glass handles he could steal them. That would be great. The baker gestures for me to direct him in out of the rain. I make a face at her. I don't think the man has seen me yet and I'm not sure I want him to. He's huge and could easily overpower me if he really wanted to. I don't even think I could aim a decent kick to his groin with all that flab hanging over it. The baker props one hand on her hip and gives me 'the look.' I roll my eyes at her because I know she is going to win this silent battle, and I am going to have to show the giant drunken egg in.

I take a deep breath and stand; smooth my skirt down over my legs, and then I step out into the rain beside the man. I tie my hair back quickly and reach up to tap the man on his shoulder. I recoil and wish I had a stronger stomach. This man must drink every minute his is awake and breathing. He smells _horrible_. He smells like jake and whiskey and a whole lot of other rather distasteful beverages. With one hand now pressed over my mouth and nose, I reach out and gingerly tap his huge shoulder. I poke him twice but he does not respond. Then he sways a little. I look over at the baker, arms akimbo, and she points to her mouth. I make an exaggerated expression of horror and shake my head. She points angrily from me and then to him and then to the floor. I sigh.

"Sir," I say. "Sir, would you like to get in out of the rain?"

He stares blankly ahead. My hair is now heavy with rain and the knot I tied slips out so my hair falls around my face in a dark, wet curtain. I shove it all back again. The man sways slightly and I think he is going to fall over on me so I take a hard left and slip. My bottom lands in a murky puddle. Now I'm angry. The baker isn't looking, so I kick the fat man in the back of the shin. I must be incredibly weak or fat people must be incredibly invulnerable to pain because he doesn't even blink. I glare angrily at the back of his head. Water runs off it like it's oiled or something, hundreds of tiny rivers down the face of a peach colored mountain. The baker looks at me impatiently. She gives me a look that says, 'Well?'

I cross my arms over my chest and gesture for her to come out here with my hand. She shakes her head and gestures to all the busily eating/talking/drinking customers. Of course.

"He doesn't want to come in!" I shout over the battering rain.

The baker shakes her head and points to her ears.

I groan and point from him to her and shake my head. Maybe this guy is on a diet and doesn't want a damn pie. The baker just repeats the cycle of pointing from me to him to the floor inside and then turns back to a woman who looks rather disgruntled over the temperature of her pie. I kick the guy again, this time in the shin bone. This time I lose my balance and have to put my hand on his squishy chest, plus I hurt my toe. My hand comes back crimson. I scream and jump back. On the front of the man's grey tunic a thick black spot is steadily growing. I scream again as the realization strikes that the spot is blood, blood flowing steadily from the man's thick neck. Several of the customers have stopped eating and are staring out the window at me. The baker is staring too.

"Help . . . me," he gurgles, falling heavily to his knees.

Water splashes up around me and I hear thundering footsteps like someone running on planks of wood. The barber appears beside me, the side of his face bloodied. He looks unsteady but incredibly seems to be able to drag the egg man away from the door to the shop. He must weigh nigh on three-hundred pounds! The front doors of the diner swing open—good thing the barber was able to move egg man—and the baker appears, looking stricken.

"What's going on?"

"Is that man all right?"

"Do you need the police?"

"No, no!" The baker shouts into the dining room, "Just an old drunk who needs to be taken home. Mr. Todd and Sawyer can handle it. Thank you for your concerns, but it's really not at all bad."

This seems to placate most of the customers because they go back to eating. Only a few hover near the window until the baker smacks it and sends them scurrying back to their tables. I inch forward, afraid. The baker is standing over the man, her brown eyes wide with wonder and outrage.

"What happened up there?" She demands, reaching down and pulling the man with the barber.

"Nothing," replies the barber.

I stand off to the side, feeling useless.

"The hell nothing did!" She catches sight of the barbers head wound. "Yer bleeding too! It sounded like a bloody thunderstorm was going on up there! You have the customers all riled up."

The baker drops the egg man's arm and reaches over to touch the barber's face. He catches her wrist half way.

"Go back inside and get your people calmed down," he says lowly, "Sawyer can help me get this taken care of."

The baker opens her mouth to protest, but the icy glare the barber gives her shuts her up like a clam and she scurries back into the diner. I don't want to touch the dead man, but I don't want to offend the barber, so I hesitantly take the man's right arm in my hands and tug. His skin is wet and slippery and I keep dropping it. I think I'm annoying the barber but he says nothing as we make our way slowly up the slick wooden stairs.

"Are you okay?" I ask as we stop on the landing to catch our breath.

He stares at me.

"Sorry," I say.

We stand in the rain for several more minutes before the barber wordlessly gets back to work. I join him hurriedly and trip on my skirts. Gravity is pushing me backwards and my flailing arms are doing nothing to stop me from toppling back down the stairs. The blood rushed to my head as I make contact with the first stair. Black and white fireworks erupt before my eyes and I think my brain just bounced from the front of my skull to the back with tremendous force. My ankle catches on something and I jerk to a jarring halt. My brain and eyes jolt in their cavities as an earsplitting buzzing begins in my head. Everything is black for a minute but then my vision is returning in spurts and stops. I feel myself pulled upright but I feel that I just keep falling forward. I am powerless to stop it so I brace for impact but in the end it isn't needed because the blackness swallows me before I hit.

"Don't sit up."

I don't, though fear ripples through me when I realize my eyes are open and I can't see. I reach up to touch my face and find a rag lying over my eyes. I yank it away and the light is piercing. I moan and fling my arms across my face. The buzzing in my head is still there. Slowly I remove my arm from my eyes and find four blurred faces above me. Slowly they morph into one and the baker is hovering over me. I cough once, twice, and I feel like throwing up but I can't. I'm having a slight issue placing myself, like coming back from a long deep sleep and you wonder whether you still dreaming or not.

"Sawyer?"

I groan.

"You sure took a good hit out there, love. You're lucky Mr. T was there or you would have split your head on the concrete." She removes my arm from my eyes and pries them open. "Bloody hell. Your pupils are different sizes."

"Who was he?" I murmur.

"Who was who?"

"That man. The one that you tried to make me force into your damn diner last night, or last night right?"

The baker makes a tsk-tsk sound and replaces the rag over my face. "Dear girl, you must have hit your head hard. There was no man last night."

I want to slap her. I am not stupid, I know there was a man and the barber will . . . Suddenly I remember the head wound. My brain seems to take another lap around my skull as I sit up.

"No, no! You'll make it worse! Lie back down, Sawyer!" The baker insists, pushing my shoulders back against the cot.

"Is Mr. Todd alright?" I mumble through a haze of swirling mental instability.

"He's fine. But you seem to not be." She pauses. And I know she is thinking because the damn woman never shuts up but it is now quiet save for the pulsing throb of blood in my head. "Do you think you'll be okay to open your eyes for a minute?"

I nod slowly and open my eyes. The view is slightly blurring on the edges, but not too bad. I can stand the light a little better now. The baker pokes two fingers in front of my face.

"How many fingers am I holding up?" She asks.

"Two," I reply confidently. "And there was a man last night, _that's_ why I was on the stairs in the first place."

"Of course." She waves her hand dismissively. She moves to the other side of the room and returns with a new rag and removes the old one from my head. "Keep this on your head." She hands me a hot mug. "Drink this _slowly_ and not all of it. I have to go back to the shop and get things going for the morning."

I try to think back. "How long have I been out?" I ask, suddenly panicked when I can't.

She shrugs. "I don't know. Mr. Todd only just brought you down when you started to come to. A day, at least." I think I see something dark cross her expression, but then she is smiling and disappears through the door without another word.

I groan and sit up. Bad idea I guess but I need to see that Mr. Todd is okay with my own two eyes. My crazy fascination has even put health concerns out to pasture. Not healthy. I press the mug to my mouth and take a long drink. It makes me feel silly dizzy and I stumble sideways. The dull throb in my temples and eyes seems to ebb almost instantly. I take another deep swallow. I giggle as sparkles shoot up the walls and stream out into the hall. I make my way to the door in a zig-zag pattern, sipping the tea at regular intervals. I stumble goofily down the stairs, giggling each time I stumble or slip. Everything seems to sparkle vividly. It's all so pretty. There's a big, stupid grin on my face as I stumble through the hall but I can't help it. Everything looks so pretty! I bump into the wall once really hard and a picture falls off its hanger and lands on my shoulder. It splits the skin and blood oozes out and runs down my back and the front of my chest. I drop the empty mug on the floor.

I gasp. It's so beautiful! The crimson patterns twist and run like tiny sparkly rivers on my pale skin. The red was so pure and untainted and deep! I touched my fingertips to it. It sparkled. Sparkled like rubies in the sunlight.

"Sawyer, what the hell are you doing?" I turn to see the barber staring at me from the top of the stairs. I don't remember ending up outside.

I smile stupidly and hold out my bloodied fingers. "Can you see it sparkle? It's like it's 'live all'n s'own!" I slur.

Mr. Todd stares at me like I'm crazy. I don't know why, but I feel so happy and bouncy. I want to bounce up these stairs and right into his arms. This is odd, for me, because I'm more of the suffer and covet in silence type. I squint at him, trying to make his image a little clearer in the sparkling stairwell. He is so beautiful! Tiny sparkling fairies are flittering around his hair. On the left are golden fairies, busily taming his hair, on the right, silvery-black fairies are teasing it up. I think it is silly that they seem to be teasing it out in all directions yet keeping it perfectly in place. His eyes glow like warm embers smoldering angrily. I can't believe I've never seen this all before!

"What did Mrs. Lovett give you for that head-ache?" He asks as he descends slowly. The fairies never miss a beat as he slowly steps downward.

"Tea, sir." I say, lowering my bloody hand and pointing to the mug. My own voice sounds funny, sort of childish and echo-like. Like it's not me but some recording of me from a long time ago being replayed.

He grabs the mug and holds it to his nose. He pulls it away and grimaces. "Bloody hell. How much of this did you drink?" He glances at me again. "Never mind, it doesn't matter now."

Nope. Nothing matters. He is so pretty and his little fairies are almost done teasing his hair I think. I touch his hand and he jerks away. A grey fairy lands on my fingertips. I smile lopsidedly but the fairy just glares back like it's angry at me. His body bows right and I gasp because—no, that's not him bending, that's me falling. I catch myself on the wall and giggle.

"You look pretty, Mr. Todd!" I garble. "You look like the dark, angry prince of fairies!"

Even through the sparkles I see that smile that I have never seen before now. Amused yet distant, he takes me by the arm and leads me back into the shop. I skip beside him, humming and trying to get him to dance but he won't. Stubborn man. My feet are unsteady under my shaking knees so I, too, decide that dancing is not a good idea right this moment. I bounce alongside instead.

"The fairies let him out, didn't they?" I ask, pulling his sleeve excitedly. "The gold ones did."

He looks down at me. "What?"

"That man. They fairies let him out, and that's why you are so angry, right? Because they almost got you found out." I'm not sure what I mean, but it sounds good and his fairies seem to know I'm onto them because they look less vivid. I wonder if they can fade and appear at will. Mr. Todd suddenly seems to be listening. He stops and looks down at me. I continue to gush. "And then the rebel—the gold—fairies hit you in the head to give him a better chance, even though there are millions of them at your command. There are a few that would see you destroyed. Every ruler has its unstable subjects."

"No," Mr. Todd says slowly, looking less worried. "There are no . . . fairies."

I consider this. "There _are_ fairies. I can see them. They are in your hair. You are their dark prince. See," I say, pointing to a golden light by his ear. "There's one right there. I can see them."

Mr. Todd's hand brushes his ear unconsciously. "There're no fairies in my hair. There are no fairies anywhere. Bloody hell. Whatever that woman gave you is ridiculous. You're hallucinating."

"No I'm not. I can see them. I can hear them. They make everything sparkle, and that's why you are always so angry. You like the boring black, the uncontrolled misery, which is what the black fairies like too. But the gold fairies, the rebels, like the controlled beautifulness of life; they like the exurbreren…" I can't quite force that word out, so I move on, "They make things stand out so people want to look. Like your eyes." I hadn't noticed we've stopped walking. I wonder when we did that. I feel like I'm floating.

He stares at me again. "My eyes?" He asks.

"Doorways to the soul, but yours are always locked up tight. No one can peek in there." I poke his chest, and giggle. "But the fairies sometimes—because they're sneaky—they sometimes open the doors when you're not paying attention. They let people see when you don't know it. Like now. I can see." I stare into his smoldering eyes.

"And what do you see?" He asks, dubious.

I squint, narrowing my field of vision to his face. "I see hollowness inside you. A black rot that's growing faster than your mind can kill it off. I see a loneliness that's fueling the black hollow and causing it to spread even faster. I see a loss that causes the loneliness to be so strong, that makes everything else seem pointless and trivial. I see that you're unhappy here, or there, or anywhere because you lost someone that was your reason for your life and now you are lost and don't know what to do with yourself." I look up from his eyes. My chest feels all buzzy and I'm saying weird shit. "Am I close?"

He looks at me long and hard. "You see all that. Just by looking at me?" The black fairies are glaring furiously at the gold ones, who are hiding behind his ear.

I nod. Then another thought occurs. "If the fairies—which do exist—didn't let that man out, then, how did he get away from you?" I smile again.

The barber stared at the ground. "I did not lose anyone. I do not long for anyone. And I do not feel _anything_." He runs his hand through his hair. Fairies shoot out like little sparks. "I just want to left alone to deal with who I am by myself."

I think I can almost see the tears swimming in his eyes. A shadow crosses his face, making the gold fairies hiss and scream. Suddenly the hallway stretches and there is a line made by a shadow between us. My end of the hall continues to sparkle and be surreal, while his looks dark and old. Wallpaper hanging off the walls, the walls themselves bowed and leaning. The gold fairies are near me now, and don't seem to be able to go into the shadows. I take a step forward but the black fairies swarm me and are pulling me back. Their sharp claws tear at my skin and clothes and hair, dragging me farther and farther down the hall. Away from the barber.

Someone is screaming a blood curdling shriek that deafens me. Then I realize it was me.

And then he is gone and I am in the fetal position on the floor. Alone in my room. My heart is pounding against my ribcage. My mind is struggling to regroup with reality. The room is no longer lined with glitter and the fairies I was so sure of are nowhere to be seen. The barber's sad face is branded into the back of my eye lids. The baker comes bustling in. I vomit onto the floor.

"Not feeling much better eh?" She takes a double look at me and frowns. "Are you okay? Why are you on the floor? I told you not to drink the whole bloody lot of it! That'll mess with your head."

I blink a few times as the tears roll down my cheeks and then the baker's small white hand grabs the empty mug away from my face. I nod vaguely. Hallucinates are no good for me.

Slowly I closed my eyes and pretended it was all a bad dream.


End file.
